Toxia (Nightblade)
Toxia the Nighblade is a rounded hero who is specializes in poison. Her spells focus on dealing damage over time. In addition to this, her spells also have the ability to slow enemies. Abilities Innate Expunge 'C: 75 Ability Type: Castable Can Target: Creeps, Commanders Effect: Shoots away a swirling mass of venom thrusts towards enemies in range. Cooldown: 15 seconds. ''With veins of poison, and the agility of a beast; the Nightblade is able to achieve perfect focus and expurgate her poisonous blood unto to 15 enemies in range. However, due to the strain of keeping such toxins in her blood, the Nightblade suffers a penalty to mana regeneration. The Nightblade's innate spell. It is dependant on the level of Venom Thrust and cannot be cast without points invested in it. Because of the mana cost, you are typically unable to use this skill till the Nightblade reaches level 3. Expunge's cooldown is independent of Venom Thrust. Learned Abilities 'Venom Thrust 'F: 8 - 26 Ability Type: Castable Can Target: Creeps, Commanders Effect: Shoots a bolt of poison towards her enemies, dealing damage over time and slowing the target. The Nightblade is able to effortlessly materialize the venom that runs through her veins, concentrating it into a deadly bolt of poison that she thrusts at the target unit, poisoning it and causing it to take damage over time and become slowed for the duration. Damage: 1 - 150 per interval. Attack speed reduction: 20%. Movement speed reduction: 50%. Duration: 10 seconds. Cooldown: 0 seconds. From early to mid-game, this is her main source of damage. Even though the damage seems quite underwhelming at a first glance, the damage per interval adds up quite fast. Combine this with her other abilities which allow her to send out very large amounts of thrusts and you will find yourself doing large amounts of damage while still being able to pool money away. Note that venom strike does not stack. If it hits an enemy who is taking damage from a venom strike, the target will not take additional damage over time and the duration will NOT reset. This is true if the venom strike comes from one that has been indvidually, flurry, venom stance or even from an allied Nightblade. '''Venom Cloud G: 80 - 261 Ability Type: Castable Can Target: Creeps, Commanders Effect: Poisons the area, dealing damage over time and reducing the attack and movement speed. Being a mistress of poison, the Nightblade is able to envelop a target area with a deadly toxic cloud, damaging enemies and slowing them while they are inside. Damage: 15 - 300 per second. Attack speed modifier: -5% to -50% Movement speed modifier: -10% to -100% Duration: 15 seconds. Radius: 400. Cooldown: 80 - 30 seconds. Early game, this is a very good source of damage, but stays good till late game because of its ability to slow the movement and attack speed of enemies. The cloud has a decently sized radius, allowing it to easily be cast into a choke point or in the middle of a large mob of creeps. Venom cloud's slow is enough to group up a number of creeps that happen to pass through its radius, giving you the perfect opprotunity to cast Flurry on a decent number of enemies without much effort. Also note that the cooldown decreases more drastically the higher the level is. Venom Stance 'X: 60 - 150 Ability Type: Castable Can Target: Allies, self. Effect: Puts a shield on a friendly hero, which shoots venom thrusts at attacking units. ''Through dedication to the toxin arts, the Nightblade is able to turn a friendly hero into a plague bearer, giving a chance for attacking enemies to be struck by Venom Thrusts. Chance to Strike Attackers: (10 + 5*Level)% Duration: 30 seconds. Cooldown: 30 - 3 seconds. The level of Venom Thrust determines the level of those released by Venom Stance. If no points are put into Venom Thrust, then the level of those released by Venom Stance will be level one. Reflected attacks will still cause a Venom Thrust to be released. '''ChernobylissC: 100 - 400 Ability Type: Castable Can Target: Creeps, Commanders Effect: Knocks back all enemies from target area. Targets are affected with a toxin that spreads to nearby enemy units, dealing damage and slowing them. The Chernobyliss spell is a truely horrifying one indeed. Responsible for wiping out whole civilizations, only a select few have the constitution to survive casting this spell, which uses one's own blood as a catalyst for the virulent plague it wroughts upon enemies. Which makes the this spell all the more terrifying, in the hands of the Nightblade, who can use her venomous blood not only as a catalyst, but to further bolster this spell, allowing her plague to slow and severely damage affected units, while using them as the ultimate plague bearers. Duration: 20 + 2*Level seconds Damage: 50 + 40*Level^2 + Agility*2 per second Area of effect: 195 - 240, spreads to units in 200 area around affected units. Cooldown: 250 - 210 seconds. Chernobyliss allows the Nightblade to still have a presence later on in the game, even after the damage from her other spells falls off. Tips The Nightblade herself is not the best candidate for Venom Stance. Try pairing her with a tanky melee hero, such as Blood Dancer or the Paladin, who can get the most out of the spell. It is useful to have at least one point in Venom Stance during rounds with ranged attackers, as it can make them a lot easier. A good hero to pair her with is the Eye of the Void. It is important to understand that Venom Thrusts originating from Venom Stance count as damage dealt by whoever has the shield applied on them. This means that if you cast Venom Stance on the Eye's ultimate, any enemy that gets hit with a resulting Venom Thrust will be drawn towards the void. Because the Terror is typically tanking a lot of hits, a good number of Venom Thrusts will be cast. If the Terror is equipped with a Brutalizer, it can make efficient use out of the amount of enemies being grouped up in the void. Rounds with projectile reflection can be a problem for the nightblade, unless played properly. Creeps do not start to reflect projectiles until they are attacked, so take advantage of that window of time while you can. Group up a large amount of creeps on one side, making sure not to attack them, and cast Flurry to have a Venom Thrust applied to each creep. Casting individually will cause the creeps to start reflecting projectiles. The creeps who did not get hit by a Venom Thrust will then start to defend, so use Venom Cloud next. You can then go to the other side to do the same. If your teammates have started attacking the other side, you can go past them to reach creeps who have yet to start blocking projectiles. Using your ultimate is also an option for these waves. Chernobyliss is very reliant on its spread to clear out large groups of enemies, but there are times where creeps die too quickly and are unable to infect others. Try luring the commander about to spread the toxin to uninfected creeps. You can also make use of a Force Edge to push the infected and uninfected closer together or use a Wand of the West Wind to stall creeps. Counters. While Nightblade may be a formidable foe, she is not without her counters. For one, while all her spells are capable of massive damage over time, they quickly lose much of their power come late game, save her ultimate. At that point, you must utilize your spellbringer to counter her main source of damage, Chernobyliss. Chernobyliss relies creeps being in close proximity to each other in order to spread the toxins quickly. While there is nothing you can do to stop the toxin from spreading if she casts it on a tightly packed group of units, if you see that there are any creeps grouped up in a line, you can use Whole Displacement from your spellbringer to create a hole in the creep line, preventing the toxin from spreading to any other units. This can also be achieved through use of the item Force Edge, but be careful, because if you push a creep that's affected by Chernobyliss, it will help her spread the toxin to any units near it. Hypnotist's Delirium spell is also incredibly useful for stopping Nightblade's ultimate dead in its tracks; by reducing her damage output to zero. If her team was depending on her to clear a massive creepwave, Delirium will hopefully buy your creeps enough time to at least take out their team before it wears off. Category:Well Rounded Heros Category:Heroes Category:Well Rounded Heroes Category:Strategy